The Spy Who Came In With A Cold Part 2
by thebadwolf
Summary: Part Two Of A Two Part Ninth Doctor And Rose Novella


The Spy Who Came In With A Cold – The Conclusion

A Ninth Doctor Novella

By

Russ Flinn

© Russell Flinn 2005

_For Christopher Eccleston, With Thanks_

Barb Ett Candicoat sashayed off the stage, hips swinging like a hypnotist's pocket watch. Like all good strippers, she always left the audience wanting less.

She stood in the wings, savouring the cool, dark relief from the blazing light under which she had discarded her Year Forty-three epidermis, feeling like a new woman and looking all the better for it. Amused and not a little flattered, she watched as a couple of Roodbugs scuttled onto the podium and fought determinedly over the scraps of her old skin that she had not cast, lasciviously, into the enthralled audience.

So what if some people thought her job was demeaning to her species. It was no skin off her nose. If you've got it, flay it, that was her motto.

Invigorated, Barb made her way to her room backstage. She needed a good stiff drink, the kind that could fuel a star liner from one end of the galaxy to the other, but first she wanted to shower the last vestiges of flesh-pelt into the sewers of New Ailing, feeling her new skin alive and tingling under the scented spray.

As she towelled herself dry, anticipating the first rushes of aneasthoholic oblivion, something like a small riot was breaking out outside her undressing-room door.

Barb had grown accustomed to the over-wrought attentions that her occupation sometimes brought, the throngs of autoerotic autograph hunters, all wanting a piece of her. She had always scoffed at the notion that she was being exploited, or that her act was a detriment to her people. She doubted that any of her critics had ever wielded such self-empowerment as to see politicians, police officers and polycarbonates melt in a steaming pool of their own satyriasis.

All the same, it was a bloody annoying racket at the best of times, and being sober and in need of a drink was never the best of times in her book.

Throwing on a robe and kicking her newly-delicate feet into a pair of fleecy pink mules, Barb strode purposefully to the door, swelling her not inconsiderable chest and marching out into the corridor to enquire just what the frig was going on.

The passageway was alive with activity, limbs, faces, wings and branches all thrashing about in a melee of rowdy hysteria. It didn't look like the usual band of libidinous zealots at all, more of a scrum in search of the fire escape. Barb could think of only two things that could cause such consternation and panic on BFG Prime, and since it wasn't two-for-one night it could mean only one thing.

A Health Inspection.

……………………………………………………………………………

In amongst the throng, a tall man in a leather jacket as worn as his grin was fighting to be heard. She recognised his face, but most of all those bloody great ear lugs that had made her think he probably ran on solar power. It was the same weirdo she had seen hanging around near young girl, the one Barb had warned her about. God only knew what he was up to now. You didn't always have to read the papers for bad news. All it took was a bloke.

"Excuse me asking," he called out, deftly dodging the thrashing tentacles and bobbing heads of the scuffling crowd, "But is this yours?"

He held a handful of fine silk up in the air. It was her other robe, the one she had left with that girl. What the hell, for the cost of another it was hardly worth finding herself caught up in conversation with a cradle-snatcher.

"Keep it, darling," she bawled over the Babel-din, and slammed the door on them all.

She had barely taken a step away from it when there was a loud and emphatic rapping on the wood, determined enough to make the handle rattle.

She might have known he wasn't going to leave it at that. Pests like him never do, she thought. Always the same. Fancy another drink, go on have another, one more for the road, and then out with the libido and off with your knickers.

Barb snatched the door open angrily, putting on her best 'if looks could kill I could take on Skaro' face.

Sure enough, he was standing there, grinning goofily, and proffering her mislaid robe.

"I told you to keep it!"

He looked at the label. "Not my size, sorry. Thought you might be missing it."

"Do I look like I'm missing it?"

The stranger looked her up and down. "Fair enough then, Barb."

She froze. "How do you know...?"

"You've got it stitched in this," he said, nodding to the robe in his hands. "Unless your name is 'Do not boil wash'."

She folded her arms defiantly, promoting her bosom to main defence. "Clever clogs, aren't we? Who are you then, mister?"

Closing the door behind him and leaning back against it, his face broke into a friendly smile almost too broad for his face to accommodate it. "I'm just a friend."

"Thing is, I'm looking for something too…"

"Your sorts always are. You won't find it here, now piss off!"

"Well, when I say 'something', I mean 'someone'. A girl, about nineteen, blonde hair, last seen carrying an umbrella and a very heavy cold?"

"Oh my God, you never give up, do you? I warned her about you…"

"Then you should have warned her about the bloke she was seen chatting to. She's gone missing, and I'm sort of her guardian. Promised her mum I wouldn't let anything happen to her and now something has. Thought you might have seen what this guy looked like."

"I can't see a thing once the spotlight's in my eyes, love. You always this careless with her?"

"I wasn't careless," he snapped, the robe crumpling in his fist. "Just appealing to your maternal instincts, that's all. Sorry I bothered you."

"Maternal instincts?" Barb looked affronted. "Don't you know a monocline when you see one?"

The Doctor looked impressed.

"Doesn't bother me. Hermaphrodites are great. Nothing wrong with single parent families."

"You're definitely not from around here then."

"Nope, which is why I need help? Your help, Barb."

"Sorry, no…"

"Look at me! Stand out like a sore thumb. Not going to open many doors for me, this look. I need a bit of local colour. Bit of style and panache."

"Trust me, it only works round here. Take me to the city and you might as well have an elk at your side."

"Not as much use in a tight spot, elks, and believe me I've been there." He paused, head cocked and straining to hear above the clamour outside. "They're getting closer."

"HV's," Barb explained. "Health Visitors doing a spot-check."

"Looking for more than spots, I reckon. Why is everyone so scared of them?"

"Because they make you better," the woman added, grim-faced. She pulled her robe tightly around her, trying to hide a shiver.

Without warning, the undressing-room door burst open, catching the Doctor unawares and sending him staggering, clutching his shoulder where the door had struck it.

Barb paled.

Almost filling the doorframe with its bulk, a figure composed entirely of white, pristine armature entered.

Before either Barb or the Doctor could voice any outrage, the HV touched the side of his headgear and began to scan the room and its occupants, searching for any signs of infection. As his gaze passed over the room, objects glittered with swarming blue pixels, caught dancing in the air, or multiplying on the surfaces of the basin and table.

"Disgusting," it pronounced, before assessing the two figures present with equal rigour. Both of them sparkled with disclosed bacteria, hands, nostrils, and lips gleaming.

"Names?"

Breaking in before Barb had a chance to speak, the Time Lord held out one iridescent hand, making the HV shrink back cautiously.

"I'm the Doctor, thanks, and this is Barb…" He checked the label in the robe, "Candicoat?" He gave her an approving grin. "Nice."

"Fake as my tits, darling, but cheers," she said rapidly, her eyes never leaving the vacant stare of the HV's helmet.

"Doctor is not a name," it announced levelly. "Doctor is a title. Name?"

Insulted, the Time Lord frowned sternly. "That is my name! And you are...?"

"And you are," it repeated without any hint of irony, "Under arrest."

………………………………………………………………………………….

"Easy there, girl," Neptune smiled, watching his young captive wake to find herself locked into what felt like a dentist's chair. She struggled briefly, causing him to giggle, stroking the fever-damp hair from her eyes.

"What's going on?" she mumbled, "Why are you doing this?"

"Protecting my investment." He gripped her chin and lifted her face to the light, surveying her face as though in possession of some new and fascinating artefact.

Rose's eyes slowly focussed, squinting against the glare. The room was bare but for the chair and the two of them, the ceiling a huge light-source, the walls and floor an immaculate sheen of surgical steel.

She glared into Reuben Neptune's face.

"You're the bloke from the bar. I recognise you."

"Recognised you too, darling," he winked, stepping away from her and looking on with a smug pride. "Or at least, recognised you for what you are. Nice little bag of surprises you've turned out to be."

Neptune took what looked to Rose like a cashier's receipt from his pocket. He perused it, beaming.

"You'd never think that something called the common cold could be so rare these days. Much less that you're also carrying strains of bacteria that haven't been seen round here in sixty years max."

Rose felt giddy from more than just her symptoms. She tugged her wrists and ankles, sore from the unforgiving clench of the bindings.

"Look, I don't know what you're on about, but if this is your idea of the perfect date then you've been seeing the wrong kind of girls."

"And now I've found just the right kind of girl. For me, that is. Hope you don't mind, but I had a friend in while you were off dreaming. Did a few tests, stuff like that, you know? Always important to get a valuation, but bloody hell, you're going to make me very rich. And make my clients very, very sick."

Without knowing why, Rose suddenly blurted, "You really are the bloke the Doctor's looking for, aren't you? Robin Somebody."

"Reuben Neptune. Yeah, that's me. Facilitator to the high and mighty, with the emphasis on the 'il', naturally. The thing I don't get is, you don't look like a HV agent to me. Don't smell like one either, all that perspiration and mucal tang. Unless Demeca's recruiting double-agents now, bless his little cotton gloves."

Momentarily, curiosity made Rose forget her plight. She leant forward in the chair, wincing as the wrist-raints reflexively tightened to prevent her moving too far.

"Demeca? Is that the Doctor's real name then?"

He scanned her with questionable admiration.

"You're good, I'll give you that."

"So is he, mate. You're going to be sorry. He eats people like the Slitheen for breakfast, so you're just toast to the Doctor."

"The Slitheen? Now there's a name I haven't heard in a while." He thought for a moment, chewing over her words. "You're really not from the HV, are you? They wouldn't know a Slitheen from a slap on the arse."

Rose saw her chance. Obviously, this guy had drugged her and tied her up because he had something to hide and thought that she was on to him. Maybe he didn't even remember her Doctor at all. Hardly surprising, since she felt like she didn't know him half as well as she should considering her life was in his hands 24/7. I mean, Rose thought worriedly, if this was his idea of a friend…

"I'm not from wherever you think I'm from, no," she blurted. "My name's Rose Tyler. From Earth. Proper Earth or Classic Earth or Retro Earth or whatever you call it these days. Twenty-first century Earth."

"Yeah, sure," Neptune scoffed. "How'd you get here then? Win a competition in Jackie magazine?"

"No, I came here with the Doctor. Well," she scowled, "Got brought here. He said it would be 'fun'."

Something odd occurred to Rose.

"Hang on. Did you say Jackie magazine? You're from Earth? My Earth?"

"Once in a while I've dropped in," Neptune replied airily, taking out the receipt to check for cerebral anomalies. Perhaps he had struck gold on the mental health front after all.

Rose waited a moment, thinking, and then carried on, "You another Time Lord then?"

Whatever he was, he responded, meeting her gaze and forgetting all about the cash cow that the black-market germ-jockey's estimate told was sitting before him.

"Time Lord?"

"Yeah," she continued. "Time Lord. Blue boxes whizzing through space and time? You are, aren't you?" Despite her uncomfortable state of bondage and the fact that this bloke was obviously a creepmeister-general, she felt strangely at ease and not a little bit clever at having rumbled his game. "The Doctor didn't think there was any of you left."

"After the Time War?" Reuben Neptune added, an odd expression coming over his smug face, as if someone had told him the moon was made of cheese and he had to bring the pickle. "You talking about the Siege Of Gallifrey? The Chronon Conflict?"

"That's the one," Rose yelped, positively radiant with pride at finally sounding like she belonged in this strange world of aliens, paradoxes, and temporal mechanics. If only the Doctor could see her now.

"I thought they were wiped out, all of the remaining Time Lord's? In the last battle?"

"So did the Doctor! Wow, he's going to be well chuffed to find you."

"Bloody hell," Neptune whispered. "The Doctor, eh? Oh happy birthday me!" He clapped his hands in delight, spinning round and round on his heel and giggling to himself.

Watching his extravagant display of delight, Rose suddenly felt that something had just slipped out of place in her mind, as though a cloud had just found a picnic on a summer's day and cast a cold, dark gloom over her joy. Surely, if the Doctor had been looking for this guy, then he must have…

"You're not another Time Lord, are you?" she mumbled, slumping back and fearing she had just done something very stupid and probably very, very wrong.

Her captor stopped dead in his tracks, covering his mouth in mock-surprise. His steely, beady eyes glittered.

"No, love," he chuckled a last, "I'm not."

Rose bit her lip, feeling as though she should have tears welling in her eyes, but fighting to stay in control.

"And when he calls you a friend…"

"He's forgetting that business comes first, yeah," he responded quietly, the tip of his tongue tracing the orbit of his lips. "And if he's coming looking for you, I see a whole new venture opening up ahead."

With deliberation, Neptune took his Chat-A-Box from his crumpled jacket and began to dial.

……………………………………………………………………………

The Doctor, never one to let possible incarceration get him down, had been imprisoned more times than he cared to remember, and had often flirted with the idea of approaching a publisher about the idea of a guide to the cells of the Universe. He even had a title in mind - - just in case he ever got round to it.

It was for this reason that he greeted the news that the Health Visitor had just announced their immediate arrest with a somewhat different response to Barb Candicoat.

"Bollocks to that," she spat, "I haven't done anything wrong!"

The Doctor simply smiled jauntily.

The HV was unmoved by either reaction, his expression and thoughts as easy to read as a stone pillar and as likely to be swayed by any plea or objection.

"I'm taking you both in for your own good. The state of your hands alone gives me reason to believe that you should be placed in protective confinement where you can no longer do yourself harm. Any attempt to resist our care will result in extreme medical attention."

"I think you've got all this muddled, you know," the Doctor replied. "We were about to share a shower when you came barging in. Nothing racey, just good clean fun. If you'd given us ten more minutes we'd have been bright as you like."

Failing to see the Doctor's gambit, Barb's mouth dropped lower than a spinster's cleavage.

"You what? Well, I've never heard the like, you dirty - "

"Oh, come on, Barb," the Time Lord interrupted, winking; "You're not one to turn down a groupie, are you?"

The HV continued his implacable stance, visor shifting slightly as his eyes must have passed from the Doctor to Barb and back again.

The low, filtered voice growled: "Groupie?"

"That's right. I'm just a fan," he beamed innocently. He took a small black wallet out of his pocket and flashed it at the HV. "See? My autograph book, mate." He passed it over to Barb hurriedly, continuing to engage the attention of the impassive mask facing him. "Got them all in there. Elvis Presley, Madonna, Marc Almond, Noel Coward, that bloke who took the stairs in the Escher Building and never came back. Worth a fortune, he is. Bet you've never seen a collection like it, have you?"

Barb opened up the wallet and saw only the words 'Trust me, I'm a Doctor' scrawled feverishly, then watched them fade and reform to read, 'PS You might want to change out of those mules'.

The HV responded flatly: "Several people in the bar have informed us you were looking for a Reuben Neptune. What is your business with him?"

"Ah well," the Doctor hesitated, taking back the wallet from Barb's trembling fingers with sly grin. "You see, the thing is, he's an old friend of mine. I was just in the area and thought I would look him up. That alright?"

"No."

The HV reached for the wrist-raints hanging from his utility belt.

The Doctor looked on, abashed, his face pinching at the sight of the manacles.

"I didn't realise this was that kind of bar." He held his hand out to Barb with utmost gentility. "Okay, Barb, I think now's as good a time as any to take you hostage." A broad smile flourished across his face. "Sorry!"

Quick as a flash, he reached out and seized her wrist, pulling her in front of him.

The HV reacted, his movements slowed by the cumbersome protecto-plating as his gauntlet went for his multicom.

"Ah ah ah," the Doctor warned, shaking his head warily. "Don't even think about it. Now back off."

She felt his grip tighten on her, in reassurance rather than menace.

"I've got a cough and I'm not afraid to use it."

………………………………………………………………………………

Voya Demeca, still ruffled and shaken by the escape of the 'sickie' Neptune, felt his wounded pride throbbing like a tender new bruise.

He had retired for the rest of the day, back to the offices of HealSec – a complex series of lofty and oppressive architectural follies that had been sequestrated by the Proctor after the first great Wellbeing Acts had been placed on the statute books, and which had effectively replaced the smaller bureaus of national government in both compass, magnificence and authority. It was here that Demeca felt truly at home, in amongst the workings of the Protectorate, monitoring the lives and habits of every citizen of BFG Prime. From his office, at the summit of one of the taller, bolder constructions, he would often be found looking out of the vista-vision, across at the sprawl of the city and down upon the tiny, squirreling figures of his patients. Their comparative size did not seem an accident to the physician, often reminding him of the very microbes he had striven so determinedly to eradicate, swarming and teeming. He had enjoyed tailoring their diets, guiding their routines, making the various pedestrian quarters into veritable mazes of cardio-vascular exercise, with nothing so near that a citizen could avoid the daily regimen of HealSec-appointed calisthenics.

Yet still they rebelled.

For all that he had done to make the best of them, he could not stem their inner disquiet, nor medicate away the curious addiction to disease. Without his efforts, and the supreme sacrifices of personal liberty that the Proctor had taken on their behalf and for their benefit, they would perish under a tidal wave of self-indulgent self-harm, rushing headlong towards Old Mortality and ushered along that path by the clandestine dealers in lungblacks, cholesto-rolls, aneasthohol and the manifold venereal diseases that street-corner whores spread as readily as their legs.

He shook his head in paternal despair and took his place at his desk.

After a short while, his office door announced the arrival of the Secretary Of Social Surgery, Yad Arter, one of the Proctor's most dedicated and closest allies in the Protectorate.

Gathering his thoughts and inspecting himself for irreproachable cleanliness as befitted his status, Demeca at last called out, "Permit him," and the heavy steel doors parted to frame the presence of the Secretary, impeccably dressed in his bleached robes of office and as lofty as his standing in their society.

The physician rose to greet him and in deference to his seniority.

Following peremptory and functional pleasantries, the Secretary settled into the only other chair in the room – which responded to his occupation of its ergonomic embrace by automatically remoulding itself to offer the best support for his spine – and rested his unwavering gaze upon Demeca.

"We understand that you pulled a 'sickie' today during your rounds, Voya?"

The physician's face barely registered the inner disquiet he felt at the question.

"And also," the Secretary continued, "That he is still at liberty within the city?"

"I have already prepared a letter of resignation and responsibility, Secretary," Demeca responded blandly, knowing that it was unlikely to be accepted beyond its worth as an apology. "It was an unfortunate occurrence."

The Secretary acquiesced with a single nod of his head.

"The subject was a Reuben Neptune," Demeca's superior noted. "He has become known to us over time, one of the prime movers in the illness underground. I'm also acutely aware that his customer-base extends as far as some of my peers within the Protectorate. Weak fools," he sighed.

Demeca would have blanched, had he the pigmentation to do so. This then, explained why such an important visitor had called on such a seemingly routine matter. It was a matter of delicate internal diplomacy and discretion.

"Efforts have been set in motion to correct my error, Secretary. As we speak, a team of HV's is tracking his progress."

"To the slums of New Ailing," the other man interrupted, "Yes, we're aware of your contingencies and we applaud them. However, thanks to his affiliations with certain members of government, we have become privy to more accurate and contemporary details as to his whereabouts."

"I see," said Demeca, his eyes narrowing.

The Secretary rose from his chair and went over to the vista-vision. "He's back in the city, apparently refreshed from his brief sojourn amid the fleshpots of that vile little Hooverville, Demeca." Then, almost casually, "He's come into the possession of a very valuable piece of merchandise. An off-worlder, completely unregistered. Probably riddled with disease. Valuable in the wrong hands, naturally, but practically priceless in the right ones."

Even without turning, the Secretary could feel the cold horror spreading from the physician, the air chilling alongside his blood. He heard Demeca's nails on the immaculate surface of his desk, scratching vainly at it as his hands became fists.

"We want her, Demeca. Alive, unharmed, and unhealthy."

The doctor was bewildered, dumbfounded by what he had just heard.

"But surely," he began, falteringly, "We should observe the wishes of the Proctor and eliminate any risk to the populace rather than -"

The Secretary pierced him with a look.

"Those are the wishes of the Proctor. His condition is…" He chose his words with obvious care. "Improving."

"Oh." Demeca's face fell, as did a brief and solemn silence between the two men.

"I do not know such things for myself," the Secretary at last went on, "But it takes very little imagination to see that the procurers of Reuben Neptune's contraband within the Protectorate are merely conveyors. I will leave you to reach whatever diagnosis you feel appropriate based on that information."

He turned on his heel, his errand performed, and headed for the door.

"Just find her," the Secretary advised. "Alive. And quickly."

And then he was gone, leaving Doctor Voya Demeca to contemplate upon his words.

……………………………………………………………………………..

Barb wasn't sure what annoyed her more, the fact that some lanky lunatic had just waltzed into her life, held her hostage and dragged her kicking and screaming into the street whilst HV's stood back doing nothing, or that she hadn't got that drink after all.

On reflection, it was probably that he had been right about the mules.

Like her footwear, their escape – or her abduction, as she didn't like to think of it – was anything but glamorous. When the HV's had grown impatient of the stand-off, spurred on by insistent demands over their multicoms to apprehend the pair of them at whatever cost, the Doctor had instead grabbed her by the hand and led her full tilt out across the street and to a nearby parked car.

With his free hand, and watching the steady and implacable progress of the Health Visitors as they advanced from the bar towards them, disinfectant sprays and wrist-raints at the ready, he deftly produced a slim, glowing cylinder from his pocket and compelled the locks of the vehicle to spring open, bundling her into the passenger seat and dashing round to the driver's side.

Overall, Barb probably preferred his company to that of a sterilising bath and genetic interrogation at the sanitary hands of the HV mob, especially since her stage-act was tantamount to littering with intent to cause an affray. HealSec had a thing about dead skin, and it had only been a matter of time before they had descended upon the bars and clubs of New Ailing on a cleansing mission. She knew very well what that might involve.

Nevertheless, for all that this madman might have saved her from the revoking of her citizenship and right to practise her art, she was still pissed off. And thirsty. And in a dressing gown and slippers and no make-up.

"We haven't got time for that," Barb snapped, watching the advance of the HV's in the B-Hind-U-Vue. The Doctor carried on oblivious, poking the blue ember of the sonic screwdriver into every nook and cranny he could find. "What the hell are you doing anyway?"

"Hotwiring it," he growled, "If you can button it long enough for me to concentrate on the job in hand."

Barb thought briefly about getting out, wondering if her lot might actually be better if she just surrendered to fate and handed herself over to HealSec instead of trusting her life to a stranger who couldn't even start an Ang-A-Ka. Nevertheless, she had no white hanky to wave, and even if she did, she might as well be flourishing a loaded weapon at them.

"Oh, for pity's sake," she cried, and clipped the Doctor round the ear.

He cried out, clutched his aching ear and swung round, glaring.

"Oi, what did you do that for, you stupid -"

The engine roared beneath their seats.

"Drive!" she screamed, picking up the N-Joy-Pad and shoving it into his free hand. "Go on, you dopey sod! The red button!"

Scowling, the Doctor thumbed the Pad and the vehicle leapt forward, just seconds before the HV's were alongside them. People scattered, yelling and remonstrating with the driver who had nearly deprived them of their flailing limbs.

The Doctor, his ear still smarting from Barb's blow, fought to control the hectic lunges of the Ang-A-Ka, instinctively navigating his way through the panic-stricken crowds and swinging onto a less pedestrian highway.

"Engine could do with a tune-up," the Doctor noted. "Sounds like someone dropping a bin down a lift-shaft."

"That's not the engine. It's the stereo." Barb tweaked the volume control and the noise worsened. As did the headache it was inciting in the Time Lord's skull. "Belcarian hardbeat floorstomp deathbop."

He winced, almost as much from the name as the racket of it.

"Turn it down then," he yelled. "It's putting me off."

"It's meant to," his passenger explained. "All part of the driving experience, you tit."

The Doctor glanced over at her, utterly baffled.

"What the hell kind of car is this?"

His passenger looked back at him, equally bewildered.

"Don't tell me you've never driven an Ang-A-Ka before?"

"You can tell?" he snapped, snatching a sarcastic glance at her before thumbing them out onto an open stretch of road and scouring the B-Hind-U-Vue. A HV transporter roared into sight, the flashing tine of its ambu-lance pointing the way.

"It's an Ang-A-Ka, love. Driving therapy, they call it. Empathic kinetics. Runs on road-rage, but, at a push, physical discomfort is good for getting you from A to B."

"Fantastic," the Doctor declared, meaning anything but, "So how many miles does it do to the ouch?"

With uncanny reflexes, the Time Lord picked his way through the late-night stragglers and parked cars, slamming his thumbs down hard on the accelerator and sending the vehicle into a single-minded non-stop lunge through the darkened streets. It did not occur to him that he had no idea where he was going, and instead worked on the assumption that his goals always seemed to be in direct proportion to the number of people trying to kill him. He was a little grieved that he had felt compelled to press-gang Barb to his cause, if only because he hadn't had the time to weigh her up, but if her reaction to the HV's was any indication, he had at least picked an ally, albeit a reluctant and mouthy one.

In their wake, the HealSec transporter was still in determined pursuit, but seemed not to share the Doctor's regard for the pedestrian citizenry. Instead, a booming voice announced from within it that it was the duty of all Belcarians to zealously effect their egress from its path under threat of prosecution for endangering their lives.

"Persistent little buggers, aren't they?" Barb observed. "Who's been a naughty boy then?"

"Believe me, I'm just as much in the dark. Unless looking for a friend has been outlawed then my nose is clean as far as I'm concerned."

He tipped the N-Joy-Pad in his hands, the gyroscopic sensitivity triggering an almost impossibly narrow turn onto a side road and momentarily out of the transporters line of sight.

"Not if that HV was right, and you were seen looking for Reuben Neptune," his passenger explained.

The Doctor risked a swift, querying glance at Barb.

"You know him?"

"Everyone does, by reputation if not by sight. He's a sick-bagger. Got a really bad name, as well as a stupid one. A proper wide-boy. Always out to make a killing." Barb didn't need to look at the Doctor to feel him flinch. "Sorry, bad choice of words."

"Never mind," the Time Lord said quickly, "Just tell me where to find him."

Barb put a reassuring hand on his knee, comforting rather than lascivious. "You're doing a great job of that already, sweetheart. Just keep on towards the city complex. Where the money is, that's where you'll find his kind."

Spurred on by her words, the Doctor's face froze in resolution, his eyes darting with inhuman speed and precision as he divined his way to the city limits.

"Just don't get too comfortable," Barb warned, conscious of the HV vehicle unexpectedly looming behind, "You'll stall the engine."

Illustrating the redundancy of his passenger's advice, the Doctor squirmed in the tiny bucket seat, his head scraping and bumping the roof as the HV's trailed in the distance, sirens fading. "Something tells me it wasn't exactly designed for comfort."

"You're catching on fast. Take the next down."

He snatched a baffled look at Barb.

"Down?"

She pointed ahead, absently noting she had not had time to paint her new set of nails.

"Sewage lines. Takes us right out of New Ailing. HV's avoid them like the plague." Barb took a moment to give their pursuers a single-digit salute. "Mostly because that's what they're filled with. You might want to wind your window up, darling."

The Doctor's face set in grim determination, searching the road ahead for the steaming burrow.

It yawned only a few hundred feet along their route, a miasma of waste products and their decaying stench belching out of the ground like the breath of some great sleeping dragon.

One way or another I always end up in it, he mused, bracing himself for the vertical drop.

"Right, hold on then, Barb."

The Ang-A-Ka reared up and flipped into a nose-dive deep into the bowels, quite literally, of New Ailing.

With an odd mixture of good manners and embarrassment, neither Barb nor the Doctor passed any comments about the view, the Time Lord busying himself with trying not to strike either wing of the vehicle on the promontories and organic stalactites whose composition he did not care to contemplate.

"Now I know how an endoscope feels," Barb quipped at last, giving her erstwhile captor's thigh an approving squeeze. Rather unflatteringly, she felt the engine rise in pitch as he reacted with disquiet to her touch.

She leaned forward, flicked a switch on the dashboard and a droning voice joined them, drowning out the bluster of the racing engine. The Doctor did a double take, certain he had heard it announcing a call from Malolobo of Beli who was incensed about the way that plastic shopping bags weren't designed with paws in mind.

He groaned.

"Local radio," she explained, "Should get us to the city in no time."

……………………………………………………………………………………

"Right," the Doctor said, helping Barb out of the despicable confines of the Ang-A-Ka's passenger seat. "I would say that we better remember where we parked, but I've got a feeling that we're hardly likely to miss it after that journey." His nose wrinkled. "You might want to hold your breath, by the way."

Delicately avoiding the freshly redesigned paintwork, Barb could only agree. In her profession, she had often had the typical dreams of any performer, of being assisted out of a limousine and having all eyes upon her. It had not included stepping self-consciously out of a motorised turd, although, to be fair, all eyes were still upon her if only for very different reasons.

"Shit car anyway," she muttered to herself, trying to make herself look presentable for the city, no small feat given that she wore only a dressing gown and slippers. "I feel a bit under-dressed."

The Doctor folded his arms and gave her a curt inspection, his reaction questionably unmoved. "Bit over-dressed for you, surely? I shouldn't worry, anyway. Never did Arthur any harm."

"I'm not an Arthur, Doctor," she glared. "Arthur _and_ Martha if anything, actually." It had been the first time she had called her kidnapper cum saviour by his stated name, and she could not help thinking he was the least likely doctor she had ever met. He wasn't clapping her in irons for a start, nor lecturing her about contractual obligations and the benefits of a healthy lifestyle with no sex, drugs, anaesthohol, lungblacks or fun. In fact, he looked more like a divorced dad out on the pull.

Actually, that was a thought.

"So this girl," Barb queried, scurrying to stay alongside the Time Lord's determined gait, "She's your daughter?"

He stopped dead, Barb nearly tripping over her mules as she matched him.

"What makes you say that?" he answered, just a fraction from appearing utterly appalled.

Recognising that she had hit some kind of nerve, Barb gave an uncharacteristic shrug.

"And no, by the way," the Doctor stressed, "No, she isn't." He shook his head in disbelief and carried on.

She followed on, realising that discretion was the better part of valour but also much less interesting. "But you wish she was?"

His face set, grim and wary, he ignored the remark.

Barb chose not ignore that in return.

"Probably some kind of surrogate thing is it, darling? I can go with that. She seemed lovely from what I saw. Would make anyone proud, she would. Or broody."

He spun round sharply, hands out and palms up, barely troubling to disguise his confounded irritation.

"What is it with people and domestic stuff?" he opined. "Can't a person just be a friend without it getting all biological and Oprah?"

Barb's eyes met his, eyebrows raised playfully.

"What?" he demanded. "What's that face for?"

"Chill out, love," she squealed, secretly delighted that her natural empathy with both sexes made such short work of the psychology of the single-sexed. "Was just a question. Now, shall we carry on with my abduction or are you going to stand there looking half gone?"

He breathed in, eyes closing as his mood drained away, and gave a brief sigh.

"If you really want to know a secret, Barb," he admitted, "It's that I really don't have a clue where to look. No plan, no idea, nothing. All I know is…"

He looked up and down the busy street, scouring strange, uninvolved faces pass in their detached, ambivalence to his plight.

Barb reached out and took his hand, stroking it with her thumb.

"It's alright, love," she whispered, smiling up at him. "I'm worried too."

A group of passers-by saw her and sniggered amongst themselves, sharing some not so private joke about her attire.

Incensed and not a little embarrassed, Barb called after them. "Yeah, you want to stare!" She gave them a flamboyant twirl, culminating in her favourite middle-digit salutation. "It's the latest look from the House of Go Boil Your Bleeding Head!"

She dragged the Doctor by his hand, leading him across the traffic lanes and away from the prying eyes of the pedestrian district, a mother tugging a reluctant son along behind her.

"Come on, you," she chafed, "Let's go see if Displaced And Retrieved have heard anything."

……………………………………………………………………………….

"Sir," the HV's synthetic voice began, "There has been a development in the Reuben Neptune situation."

The impassive sheen of the visor reflected the scene of Demeca's office, rendered concave by the face-friendly shape of it. When Demeca strode up to his chief of medical security, his mirrored face swelled up like a boil fit to burst.

"Meaning what exactly?"

The debriefing continued. "The offender was tracked to New Ailing, and has returned since using false authentication as was expected. It appears he was not alone."

Demeca scowled. "This is old news."

"There was another."

"Another what?" the physician snapped, growing impatient with the HV's unnecessary pauses for what he must have considered dramatic effect.

"Another unknown. In the course of our investigations, it emerged that this undeclared off-worlder had been asking after Neptune, sir. Furthermore, he was also looking for the female subject last seen with the 'sickie'."

Demeca hesitated.

"Recommend we institute a sweep of the entire city, sir," the HV continued cautiously, an evident disquiet at the physician's faltering. "We should haul in every germ-jockey and sick-bagger on the books until we can safely assess the situation."

"Stand down the search," Demeca replied firmly.

Even with the visor, the doctor sensed his underling's concern, a barely discernible shift in the quality of his filtered voice: "Very well, sir. Shall I submit my report to the Proctorate?"

Demeca looked up, once more witnessing his own face gazing back at him, reflected in the glassy-white visor. He saw the steel in his own pale eyes, and felt it communicate absolutely his authority.

"Not necessary. I am to answer directly to the Proctorate myself."

The doctor watched the HV retreat from his office, noting the insolent shaking of his head for another time.

Satisfied he was alone again, Voya Demeca took up the receiver of his Talkie from its cradle on his desk and read aloud the numbers hastily jotted on his notepad. When he had finished, he heard the number dial, wiping the mouthpiece with a sterile cloth. In turn, it sensed the breath from his lips, and dispensed a short burst of antiseptic freshener, an act of mutual preening.

"Oi oi?" spoke the earpiece.

"Okay, Mister Neptune, your story has been verified," the doctor's steady voice replied. "Now let us discuss the terms of the deal."

…………………………………………………………………………………

The young boy at the Bureau of Displaced And Retrieved made a particular show of the contempt he had for his job.

In fact, it was less of a show and more of a three-act opera whose libretto consisted of such classic administrative platitudes as "Fill in this form", "In black, please, blue doesn't copy well", and, "Okay, but I'm not making any promises."

Barb was exasperated, completely mystified as to how the Doctor managed to maintain his trademark bonhomie in the face of such bloody-minded intransigence. He seemed to win people over out of sympathy, as if his play-act of being a cheerful simpleton were designed to elicit smug benevolence from any official that crossed his path.

She, on the other hand, was all for knocking his teeth out, an intention about which he seemed blissfully unaware as he scrolled through all the latest missing persons.

"Quick as you can, mate," the Doctor prompted, finally showing signs of strain. They had been there for something like an aeon, and for all the Time Lord's vast knowledge of the theory and practise of temporal physics, he had yet to see a convincing theory to explain away the way time distended to almost agonising tensions when presented with the machinations of bureaucracy. Although, he had once read a rather interesting hypothesis about the proportional relativity between cheque clearance and a slow and painful death.

The young quisling glanced up, a curious bovine expression upon his face.

"Won't be a minute," he replied.

"We can see that," Barb sighed, craning forward to check the monitor screen herself.

The lad went back to his screen, making a less than subtle play of adjusting the monitor-stand by such a fraction as to prevent her reading any of the scrolling data.

She gathered up the folds of her gown theatrically, pursing her lips and narrowing her eyes, turning to face the Doctor but with her voice intended to be overheard by everyone currently passing through the star system.

"Come on, Doctor," she groaned, keeping her contempt for the official well within her peripheral vision. "This tosser's so wet behind the ears he's probably grown gills. We're better off looking for this Reuben Neptune character instead. Everyone's heard of him."

As if to prove her point, the young man looked up from his procrastinated endeavours.

"Neptune, Reuben Zachary Dahl?" he quizzed.

"Yeah, that's the bloke," the Doctor said, his ears pricking up. "Why, is he Misplaced too?"

"'Displaced'," the official corrected.

"Okay, whatever, just do me a favour and answer the question." There was a ring of authority in the Time Lord's voice now, something of a Pavlov's bell to anyone caught in the chronic hysteresis of beadledom.

Sure enough, the dog in question salivated.

"Yes, well, I mean, he was and now he isn't," the boy explained badly. "Orders from above. Do not apprehend, hamper or harass, they told me."

"That must have come as quite a blow," Barb quipped.

"Although, I am supposed to notify HealSec immediately upon anyone asking after him."

The Doctor froze, forcing a luminescent grin. "Right, well, take your time, mate. No hurry is there. I tell you what," he went on, pulling Barb away from the counter rather too roughly, "We'll just nip out and get some grub and we'll be back for the arrests and interrogation later, how's that grab you?"

"Rose Tyler was also a keyword, Doc," came a voice from behind them.

Barb and the Doctor whirled round to face a scrawny, ill-kempt and weasel-faced figure, flanked by two heavily-armoured HV's. He was smiling affably, but still bore all the airs and graces of a rat on a dining table.

"That's girls for you," he joked, "Always land you in trouble in the end."

Barb unconsciously reached out and took the Time Lord by the hand.

"Is this who my bladder thinks it is, Doctor?"

He looked down at Barb, smiled meekly, and turned back to the new arrivals blocking their egress. His expression grew as blunt as his words.

"Where's Rose?"

Reuben Neptune cocked his head, regarding the Time Lord with almost sympathetic curiosity.

"Jeez, you've got it bad this time, haven't you, Doc? Don't worry, your little princess is being well looked after. That's what this place is all about, right?"

With purposeful deliberation, the HV's began to advance.

……………………………………………………………………………………

Rose woke, her eyes sore from sickness and tears.

The past few hours had been a blur, whether it was from the drugs, or the cold or her sense of loneliness. The Doctor would come and find her, she was sure of it. He had promised her mum that he would keep her safe, and she believed he had meant it.

Even so, there was still the nagging doubt that he might not.

How could he find her anyway, when even she had no idea where or when she was anymore. This was no fairy tale, and she had not laid a trail of breadcrumbs for him to follow. Not even used tissues, for that matter, she thought bleakly.

She had gone from one confinement to another, manhandled by strange, silent guards clad in immaculate white plastic. She wasn't sure if there was anyone in them, and they had not responded when she had nervously tapped on their armour and asked if anyone was home, except to shove her ruthlessly into a transporter and bring her here, to this equally blank, grey cell.

At least it had a bed, even if it was more of an elevated futon, such was the measure of comfort it offered to her aching limbs.

When the door slid open, as weariness and her sickly demeanour coaxed her to close her eyes and search for a better kind of dream, she was not sure what she had been expecting, but it was fair to say that the sight of Barb, in a pink dressing gown with downy slippers to match, had probably been way down the list of possibilities. Just below Daffy Duck and the cast of Home And Away.

Even so, it was eminently preferable, because it meant she hadn't succumbed to hallucinations just yet.

Probably.

"Rose, love!" Barb cried, delight in her bright green eyes.

"Oh my God, Barb?" She struggled to her feet and flung her arms around the older woman, unexpected tears of relief flooding down her face and soaking the stripper's gown maroon.

Barb shushed and cooed, stroking the young girl's hair and squeezing her tightly. "There, there, pet," she whispered, cradling Rose and leading her back to sit down upon the hovering bunk, taking her place beside her and offering the comfort of an arm around her twitching shoulders. "Let it all out, sweetheart. Barb's here."

After a short while, Rose's tears dried, assisted by a paper tissue that Barb produced from between her ample bosom, and she looked the older woman in the eyes, pleading not to be wounded by the answer to her question: "Barb, you came all this way to get me? I mean, they're letting me go, right?"

Barb thought about how best to reply, something she rarely did, but sensing the desperation in the young girl's voice.

"To be honest, pet," she said slowly, "I haven't a bloody clue. I don't know why you're here, why I'm here, or what's happened to the Doctor."

Rose struggled upright.

"The Doctor? He's here?"

"Somewhere, yes." Barb pursed her lips, her brow creasing. "They brought us both here when we came looking for you, then split us up. They carried on like he was important or something; didn't get half the roughing-up I got, I can tell you. Look at this," she said, indicating the red marks on her arm. "I'm going to be bruised to buggery tomorrow. I wouldn't mind, but this is new on."

Rose got to her feet, wrapping her arms around her and walking to the centre of the barren room.

"He won't let them keep us like this," she muttered, grasping at hope. "If he knows we're here, he'll come and get us, Barb." She looked back at her cellmate. "He will."

"I bloody well hope so, darling," Barb admitted. "I've known flies that have landed in the shit less often than him, that's for sure…"

……………………………………………………………………………………

"So," Demeca began, glancing over the file in his hand, "You claim to be a Doctor."

The Doctor looked across at the albinised face of the physician, stripped of hair and emotion. He was acutely aware of his predicament, his exit from the airy, Spartan office blocked by more of the faceless guards, and faced with someone they treated with such reverence that he could only be bad news.

Nevertheless, he turned on the charm.

"Take two aspirin and call me in the morning. Does that make you feel any better?"

Demeca snapped the file shut with an emphatic report that made the attendant HV's flinch visibly. They were quite unused to seeing their leader's authority despoiled in such an outrageous fashion, and Demeca himself struggled to retain his composure at the insult to his professional status.

The Doctor met his icy look with a disarmingly cheerful one of his own.

"You realise that impersonating a physician is a very serious offence here?" Demeca asked darkly.

All that earned in return was a hapless shrug.

"I'm safe then. Always been rubbish at impressions. I'll just stick to me, if that's okay?"

Reuben Neptune, who had been sat loafing in the corner of the office the whole time, sniggered, catching a malicious glance from the outraged physician.

Demeca went back to his notes.

"According to our I/O data, you're not even a registered arrival to our planet," the doctor noted, changing his attack. "What exactly is the purpose of your, shall we be polite and say, visit?"

"I was invited. It's all in here, see," the Time Lord explained happily, flashing the slightly psychic paper in his wallet. "Eight PM for Nine and bring a bottle."

"That paper is blank," was Demeca's dry response.

The Doctor looked at the paper himself, his expression a disconsolate frown.

"Some people have got no imagination," he sighed.

"Whereas you appear to be full of it."

"Easy, tiger. That's fighting talk where I come from." The Doctor grinned. "Thing is, I came to see an old friend."

He looked over at Neptune, letting his good-natured grin slip for a moment, his disapproval returned with a sly wink from the other.

"Yes, we have already heard about your time in New Ailing, seeking the help of that skin-lifter. With company such as that, it's no surprise you failed to locate my associate here."

The Time Lord's eyes never left Neptune.

"No, but I've got a feeling he found a friend of mine. Rose Tyler."

Demeca did his best to pass off the slight of being so blatantly ignored.

"The other ill-legal, yes. Tell me, 'Doctor'; are you always that careless with your company?"

The Time Lord looked back at the physician

"I wasn't careless," he snapped, his smile vanishing.

Doctor Voya Demeca placed both hands flat upon his desk, splaying the white-cotton fingers as a smug smile broke the smooth impeccability of his face.

"Ah, progress. We've found where it hurts."

"I'm not worried. Rose can take care of herself."

"She'll fit in well here then, since that's all we expect from our citizens. You, on the other hand, are going to find this a very difficult place to settle unless you learn to co-operate with us."

"Or what?" challenged the Doctor. "You'll medicate me into a bloody pulp?"

"No," Demeca replied thoughtfully, his eyes gazing off as if in contemplation of what was yet to come. "We will simply treat you with great care."

"Amounts to much the same thing here. I've seen the mess you've made. Cruel to be kind, is that how you sleep at night?"

The physician looked on wearily, rising to his feet.

"Let me explain your current situation in terms you might understand," he stated flatly. "My name is Voya Demeca, physician elect to the Protectorate of Belcaria Finaria Genta Prime, and the enforcer of good health upon my patients. It is my solemn duty to ensure that every individual on this planet adheres to personal and private responsibility in matters of their lifespan. Any threat to the delicate balance of nurtured longevity," he continued, his eyes steely and accusing, "Any indication of a possible risk to life is to be subject to the most extreme care."

"Is this going to take long?" the Time Lord interrupted, glancing impatiently at his watch.

"Where are you from, 'Doctor'?" Demeca asked without warning.

He got a brisk shrug of the shoulders.

"Lots of places."

Smiling didn't seem to come naturally to Voya Demeca, and perhaps it was consciousness of this failing that made him turn to the vista-vision, to the city laid out before him.

"Interesting. You really don't sound like a conventional human to me."

"I'll take that as a compliment."

"No human would have such a cavalier disregard for the benefits of longevity. Perhaps you've been spoiled."

"I don't know what you're on about."

Demeca sensed the anger implied in the words. He turned from the vista-vision and made his way carefully up to the Time Lord, absorbing everything about him in one austere and professional glance.

"Another sore spot? You really are in need of a full-scale examination."

"You can't just keep people alive forever, Demeca. Leave it to evolution."

"It's evolution that has granted us the abilities to prolong life. Although," he pondered, peering deeply into the Time Lord's eyes, "Evolution may have been kinder to some, eh?"

The Doctor found it hard to maintain the stand-off, glancing down and letting out breath.

"Death has its place. A sentence with no full-stop is just gibberish."

"My, my!" Demeca leered at the Doctor. "You talk like a god. I suppose it's easier to talk down to a lesser species, while you sit safe in the ivory tower of your own genetic legacy."

"You've got no idea what you're talking about, Demeca. You're just blundering about the human body like a removals van. You think you're just ridding people of disease, but you're not. You're taking away what it is to be alive, throwing the baby out with the bathwater."

"But imagine," the physician interrupted, "Imagine if you will, if we could be free of death and yet still its subjects. The ultimate panacaea for the human condition. Death as no more than a thrill ride."

"You won't sell many tickets."

"Oh, but we will. Already, the Proctorate has begun to concede defeat in the war against the contraband peddler and black-marketeer. For all we fight to keep people well, they wage resistance against us, reminiscing about what it was like to snivel and cough and ache. But now a new horizon presents itself. We can give them death, over and over and over again, and yet still adhere to the principles of longevity and life as laid down by our great benefactors. We can give them the placebo of mortality."

"Right," said the Doctor dismissively, a cross between irritation and cold pity in his eyes. "And how do you expect to pull that off?"

"Oh, I don't, 'Doctor'," Demeca replied, looking about the room in an affectation of innocence. "Neither HealSec nor the Proctorate could be seen to involve themselves in what amounts to complicity in criminal acts of wanton self-harm, particularly when it flies in the face of all we stand for. But on the other hand, a carefully controlled and monitored trade in unlawful death might provide the solution, so long as it's discreet."

"Give it some thought," the physician advised. "You say humanity is nothing without its death. We can provide as many deaths as the people want. Not just one full-stop in the sentence of life, but everyone a novel."

"Still sounds like gibberish to me."

"I don't require your approval, Time Lord," Demeca barked, whirling on his subject.

"You're off your head, mate. No idea what you're on about."

"Really?" Demeca's face dropped in mock alarm. "If you're happy to submit yourself to vivisection I'd be only too willing to admit my mistake, 'Doctor'."

The Doctor's eyes opened wide, his lips dry and working soundlessly, mind racing to outwit his captor.

"How would you even know how to tell a Time Lord from any other alien life-form?" he responded at last. "Far as I know, this neck of the woods has never seen sight nor sound of them." A little too desperately, he added, "Lucky thing, really. Bunch of meddlers I heard. Best off without their kind, if you ask me."

Demeca responded with a slow, sarcastic handclap, dulled by his immaculate white gloves.

"Bravo!" he cried, lips curling like leaves in a fire. "We should add amateur dramatics to you list of talents. But apparently, you are known. In fact, we have the word of your companion. But then, what are friends for?"

"Leave Rose out of this! If you've got a problem with me, than that's just between us. She's not to be involved."

"You seek to dictate terms from a position of detention?" Demeca scoffed. "You have my word that I'm washing my hands of her fate."

"If there's Rose's blood on them, scrubbing's not going to save you from me, Demeca."

Having remained silent throughout their exchanges, Reuben Neptune cleared his throat theatrically, groaning as he shoved himself out of the chair and up on his feet.

"Leave that to me, Doctor," he advised. "If anyone's going to have that girl's blood on their hands, it's going to be my, my old mate. It's harvest time, and I'm bringing home some really ripe crops."

"I'm not your mate," the Time Lord spat. "Anyway, what the hell's happened to you, Reuben? I mean, you were always sailing close to the wind, but I never had you down as a murdering scumbag."

Neptune burst out laughing, slapping the Doctor on the shoulder boisterously, and leaving his hand there as he raised his face to leer into the Time Lord's own.

"It's called business expansion. Onward and downwards," he explained gesturing descent with his free hand. "You see, your little girlfriend is worth a bloody mint out there, but I can't have HealSec breathing down my neck while I'm working the crowds."

Neptune let go of the Doctor's shoulder and strode up to stand alongside Demeca.

"So we came to an arrangement, him and me. I give him a Time Lord, with all that delicious regenerative DNA, and I get to go legit. After all," he added, about to pat Demeca on the back and then restraining himself, remembering the firestorm his germs might trigger on the disinfectant tunic, "The man here needs my contacts, my sales pitch, my know-how."

"Including my dissection, the cutting open of a nineteen year old girl?"

Neptune shook off the idea. "That's finance, Doc. You don't appreciate being in the black till you've dipped into the red once in a while."

"If we can avoid the melodramatic metaphors for one moment," Demeca interrupted, "I think it's time we began preparations for the first step to a new dawn in our peoples' existence. We have a rather important patient who requires our assistance, and I think your innate powers of reanimation and revivification will prove more than satisfactory."

The physician nodded to the HV's, who stepped forward, seizing the Doctor by his arms.

"I'll pencil you in for an urgent appointment, Time Lord. Just a skin sample to be going on with. Your right hand should suffice; and then, if the first regeneration proves successful, who knows."

Voya Demeca savoured the pause.

"Perhaps we might even reap you to shreds."

…………………………………………………………………………………..

"I don't know how you put up with him, love."

Barb sat, eyeing the Doctor as he paced about with a face set in stone, blue eyes darker under his heavy, frowning brow.

The brief excitement at being reunited with his travelling companion had abated as quickly as it had begun, a wild hug and spin around the room accompanied by a triumphant laugh, and then, abruptly, sullen silence. Rose was still weary from illness, pale and panda-eyed, and Barb had done what she could to fill the sudden vacuum of sympathy and joy that the Time Lord's rapid decent into contemplative melancholy had wrought, taking the young girl under her wing and letting her rest her sniffling head on the older woman's ample lap.

"I think he's disappointed in me," came Rose's sullen reply, sliding a hand under her head and gently squeezing Barb's leg for comfort.

"Don't be silly, pet." Barb stroked hair from Rose's eyes, expecting to see tears. "Girl your age shouldn't be mixed up in all this. You should be with a nice young fella and out having fun while you can. I don't know much about you two, but this doesn't seem much like fun to me."

The Doctor swung round, scarcely bothering to disguise his irritation.

"I'm trying to think," he said sharply. "Do you mind?"

Barb glowered, lips growing thin with a silent fury.

"I don't know much about you, mate, but what I've seen so far hasn't exactly set you above all the other men I've met in my time. For someone who wants to come across as clever, you've got a lot to learn about people."

He threw up his hands in dismay, jaw dropping. "Why is it always me who has to do the changing? Don't any of you stop to think what it's like being me for once? I've got a lot on my plate."

"And I," Barb bit back, "Have got a lot on my lap, if you bothered to notice, never mind all this other crap that's going on."

"Leave it, Barb," Rose mumbled, closing her eyes tightly shut and perhaps wishing she could do the same with her ears. "It's my choice I'm here. Don't blame the Doctor."

Barb was defiant. "Yeah, probably the same kind of choice he gave me. Causing me so much bother I had no option but to follow. Practically kidnapped me, he did. No apology, no thank you for my help, just 'Shut up, I'm thinking'." She matched his outraged stare until he had no alternative but to turn away, arms folded so tight that the shoulders of his jacket rose up comically. "Yeah, that's all you can do, isn't it? Turn your back on people when they're not as important as your problems."

"You don't know anything about me," he brooded.

"And whose fault is that? All you ever do is grin or sulk. What's going on in between, Doctor? That's if you even are a doctor. Funny kind of doctor it is that causes people so much pain."

There was a moment's silence, but for all that, Barb's words seemed to echo around the room, hanging in the air like guilt given life. She looked down at Rose, feeling her sadness.

"Look at her," the older woman whispered, "Poor lamb."

Hesitantly, the Doctor did turn, his eyes softened, unfolding his arms and hanging them limp at his sides. He looked for a long moment at his companion's sleeping face, as if he had just noticed her for the first time, seen her nineteen years. Could he even remember what it had been like, so very long ago, to know the soothing caress of someone older? To feel enough peace and comfort to fall asleep and dream when the world outside drifted away and all that mattered was calm.

His gaze lifted to meet Barb's own.

"I'm sorry," he said, letting go a sigh that seemed amassed of a lifetime of regret.

"It's not me you should be sorry for, love," Barb responded, the anger passing from her voice. "Maybe it's not even her."

Reassured that the girl was sleeping deeply, lulled by the motherly touch of the older woman's hand, Barb asked quietly, "They're going to kill her, aren't they? Cut her up to get at all that precious natural bacteria, so that some rich idiot can remind himself what life is like."

"There are some far worse things they can do than kill, Barb," the Time Lord opined solemnly. "They can make you live by their rules. An eternity of boredom, with no respite but to play with fire and hope you don't get burned. It's not all it's cracked up to be, trust me."

Barb rested her head back against the stainless steel wall and let her eyes close.

"I suppose I was no better at her age," she explained. "Craving all the sights and the sounds. Never bloody got them though; and now I have I just feel like telling them to piss off and leave me alone. Funny really." She gave a mirthless gasp of a laugh, opening her eyes to find the Doctor staring into them, as if he might be able to see her feelings, tormented, behind them. Being mad at him was silly, like scolding a dog for chasing a cat. Some things are just Nature.

"Why's it funny?" he asked, curiously fascinated.

"Now I've got all the drama I could want, and it's only because I've got the girl here that I'm not going to pieces."

"Say that again," the Doctor interrupted abruptly.

Puzzled, Barb shrugged. "I said that I'm glad Rose is here."

"I know you did, but you know what?" He broke into a smile. "I'm more glad you're here right now."

"If you're expecting me to do my show for your last request, I'm not in the mood."

"Nah," the Doctor smirked, positively glowing with seemingly inappropriate joy. "But I reckon you've just saved our bacon."

She treated him to a look of abject scepticism. "Right, whatever."

"Cheer up, Barb. I've got an idea." He gave her a full-on manic grin. "But I can't do it on my own. You're going to have to lend a hand one last time, okay?"

………………………………………………………………………………….

"Took your time, lads," the Doctor told the two HV's that led him down a sequence of corridors and hermetically sealed doors on their way to the operating theatre.

Awaiting the arrival of their captive DNA donor, Demeca and Neptune were watching anxiously as technicians busied themselves around the vast expanse of the operating theatre, recalibrating equipment, adjusting levels and wiping down surfaces.

"Aha," the physician called delightedly, "The arrival of our guest of honour."

Neptune sniggered, settling down on a surgical table and earning himself a scowl of disapproval from the nearby DNgineer who had just sterilised it.

With indomitable good spirits, the Doctor clapped his hands together, palms rubbing together in anticipation.

"Right then, where do you want me?"

Dismayed, Demeca turned to Neptune, quizzically.

"He's a nutter," the bug dealer sneered, "Messing with your head. Don't let him bluff you. Just get it over with."

Scarcely reassured by the words of a professional blagger, Demeca motioned to the surgical assistants, who took the Doctor by each arm and led him over to a chair of angular steel that seemed to have been ergonomically designed for a lawnmower, such was the measure of its comfort.

The Doctor graciously took his place, making no play of the lack of repose, and sat beaming. "I feel like a right Old King Cole," he quipped.

"A little more respect for the proceedings, please, Doctor," Demeca warned, self-consciously straightening the cut of his tunic. "You're not the only esteemed party to grace us with their presence today."

The Time Lord raised his eyebrows in mock surprise.

"Blimey, it's like This Is Your Life this!" He glanced about the room, searching the faces of all in attendance. "I hope it's not my old maths teacher, I still owe him some homework."

A blanket of silence fell across the room, half out of respect and half out of horror at the Doctor's outspoken lack of decorum. Two medical attendants broke from the throng, serving as ushers to open the heavy steel doors and admit the figure that had been standing on the other side.

"Allow me to introduce someone who has been dying to meet you," Demeca formally announced. He nodded to the two makeshift escorts. "Bring in The Afflicted."

The Doctor squinted, trying to discern more than just the obtuse shape of the bipedal figure standing beyond.

When they led it into the harsh invasive light of the operating theatre, he rather wished it had remained in the shadows.

It shambled forward, assisted by two attendants who held each arm with care as if to do otherwise might detach the ragged limbs from its body. It was a likely fear given the state that it was in.

The creature that stood before them was composed almost entirely of diseased flesh, held together by cancers and other swollen growths, a grotesque parody of cartiledge that linked bone to bone in uneven and spastic ways.

The face was a red-raw bulb which seemed to be squeezing the watering eyes from it, the nose eaten away in part and bubbling with poisonous mucous. The mouth looked hacked into the lower jaw, lips frayed and bleeding. The body, frail though it was, seemed fuelled by the determination of its component diseases, as steady in its progress as any malignant tumour.

The Doctor could not imagine what it was to live in such evident and constant pain, much less comprehend what it was like for something that had presumably known nothing else.

Regardless of his circumstances, the Doctor saw no reason to forget his manners, gulping back his initial nausea, smiling widely and giving it a cheery wave.

"Hello," he chirped, "Nice to meet you!"

It regarded him oddly, head twisting painfully back and forth, evidently causing it distress to commit to something so slight and seemingly effortless.

Demeca cleared his throat politely, motioning to the two attendants at its flank. "He's having trouble hearing again. Swab the ears, and carefully."

The Doctor grimaced exaggeratedly at the sight of the two porters delving deep into the rank, bloated orifices, disgorging the problematic pustulence into silver kidney bowls.

"Oh, that's charming, that is," he muttered under his breath. "I'm glad you're too stingy to have given me a last meal."

The creature swiped away the pair of attendants impatiently, glaring unevenly at the Time Lord, one eye blinking constantly to dispel the milky film that seemed to gather on exposure to the atmosphere.

"Is this the one?" it asked, steering its gaze over to Demeca. The voice rattled with phlegm, wheezing and spitting out its sibilants. "He doesn't have the bearing of a lord of anything, never mind of Time itself."

"Pleased to meet you too," the Doctor frowned. "I'm glad we're agreed anyway. Glad that misunderstanding's sorted. Now perhaps if you'd mind letting me -"

"I am the democracy of disease," it said. "Illness made flesh, all holding each other in check."

The Doctor looked confused, his eyes searching out Demeca, who saw his donor's dismay and explained.

"We had to put all those diseases somewhere, Time Lord. After all, we are a pacifistic people. All life is to be preserved. Even those of the smallest bacteria and the most benign virus. Once we know where they all are, every other living thing is safe. Therefore, we made the supreme sacrifice, granting one of our own the right to bear all of the manifold maladies that used to befall us. Total eradication was simply not an option the Proctor himself was prepared to counsel."

"Fantastic," the Doctor said hollowly, shaking his head in dismay. "For all your scientific discoveries you've advanced no further than the most primitive pagan. Creating a sin-eater to carry all the woes in your world. I don't suppose there was much of a waiting list for that job, was there? Just some poor idiot that your beloved Proctor plucked out of the community to bestow the gift of suffering without reprieve."

The creature seethed, strangely angered by the Doctor's sympathy, rising to its full height despite the inevitable tearing of its weakened flesh. Demeca raised a reassuring hand to it, turning to face the Time Lord, an expression of mild amusement replacing the austere and sober concern of his profession.

"You misunderstand, Doctor," he said softly. "This is the Proctor."

…………………………………………………………………………

Demeca was quite the proud father.

"He is the great saviour, our benefactor, who elected to act as the repository of all the sickness of this world. It was not an easy burden."

The swollen, misshapen head nodded its assent

"I changed…"

"That's right, sir."

The Doctor looked on, puzzled.

"What do you mean 'changed'?"

"The Proctor's DNA seemed to adjust, his system thriving on illnesses that had once only caused deterioration and decay. His original body-mass is all but gone now, hijacked by the sicknesses he carried, reprogrammed in their own image, until he became something quite 'other'. It's a marvel really, to think that all those millions of viruses, cancers, and bacteria all negotiated their roles, working in unison to create some kind of walking Babel tower. Now he is their mouthpiece, the spokesman of all sickness."

"What you're saying is, there's nothing left of him left? He's just a walking wound refusing to heal."

"No longer," the Proctor hissed, spittle making a fine mist before him. "I am recuperating."

"Hence your role in the proceedings, Doctor," Neptune winked. "You're going to give all the illness a brand new lease of life."

The Time Lord shook his head, an ironic smile of disbelief playing about his lips.

"And after that?" he asked. "You adapt my genetic structure so you can sell it. Giving people the chance to go just that little bit further than just flirting with the 'flu. Letting them die, safe in the knowledge they'll be back for breakfast."

"Something like that, yes," Demeca agreed, taking a rather vicious looking surgical tool from the glittering array of medical equipment that lined the burnished metal walls. "But first we must attend to the Proctor, revitalising his disease and regenerating what has become of him."

The Doctor watched the physician approach, the Time Lord bracing him self at the sight of the wicked curved blade as it progressed with ease into the back of his hand and snipped away a sample of the flesh.

"You're going to regret this," he winced.

He heard Neptune chuckling, his manner that of a bully's lackey, witnessing everything from a safe distance and gaining vicarious enjoyment from the Doctor's immolation. "Stop wittering," he called, folding his arms and swaggering forward. "It's no skin off your nose, is it? Not that there isn't plenty of that to go round, eh, Doc?"

"Silence," the Proctor growled, the effort of its own anger sending it reeling, to be caught and led to a chair by the nearby HV's. "Hurry, Voya, I grow weak."

Responding to the plight of the Proctor, Demeca hurried over to a veritable cityscape of assorted tissue sampler, DNA extrapolators, and nucleic grafters, placing the sample of the Time Lord epidermis into the first of the filters and busying himself with the distillation of its structure into an adaptive gene-transplant.

All the while, the Doctor watched silently, his lips pouting in deep thought.

At last, Demeca rose from his endeavours, carrying himself proudly as he held up the spliced and isolated DNA reboot his leader so desperately needed.

"One last chance, Demeca," the Doctor said firmly. "Everyone gets one last chance." He scanned the faces in the operating theatre. "You lot? Any of you seeing the error of your ways before it all goes a bit Pete Tong? No?" He sighed, a childish grin flowering where sad reflection had been just seconds before. "Fair enough. Fasten your seat belts, here we go…"

"Do be quiet," Demeca spat. "This is a delicate process."

Taking the gene-shunt tool over to the slumped and weary Proctor, Demeca deftly administered the custom-made nanites into the purulent flesh, stepping back to watch their progress about the creature's body.

There was a pregnant pause, with all in attendance watching silently as the Proctor's body rippled and glowed, his body threading with bright gold veins.

Then he screamed.

He kept on screaming, dessicated flesh and scabs flying off him as he lunged out of his chair and staggered about the room, trying to shake off and outrun whatever pain had seized him, as if trying to escape a plague of stinging insects.

The Doctor leapt up and dashed for the door, never taking his eyes off the flailing, shrieking creature.

Demeca, horrified and confused, rushed to the aid of his leader, only to be knocked back into the banks of equipment by one of its raging, swinging limbs.

He saw the Doctor trying to make his escape.

"Neptune," he yelled, nursing his pride and freshly-blooming bruises. "Stop the Time Lord, we must try the grafting again!"

"Bugger this," the bug dealer cried over the ongoing nightmarish howls of the Proctor's anguish. He made for the door.

Infused with rage, Demeca leapt, lithe as a panther, causing the Doctor to curtail his escape for fear of being caught up in the violent exchanges that had begun to erupt about the room.

Neptune stood little chance, freezing momentarily, shocked at the sudden, uncharacteristic fury and passion from the physician, but only to have Demeca clench his face between the white, antiseptic gloves. In seconds, the hostile anti-bacterial agents within the gauntlets had waged war with the natural micro-organisms on his victim's face, setting it ablaze like kindling. "I should never have trusted you," he hissed, scarcely audible above the crackle and spit of Neptune's flaming skin.

The physician let the burning man fall, rounding on the Doctor, accusing eyes filled with hate as vivid as the flames he had wrought.

And all the time, his beloved Proctor screamed.

"What have you done?" the physician snarled. "How do we stop this?"

The Doctor was defiant, but acutely conscious of what fate had befallen Reuben Neptune, never taking his eyes off Demeca's clenching, hungry hands.

"We don't," he replied, "I gave you your last chance, warned you off, and you still carried on. This is your mess. Nothing to do with me."

A HV stumbled forward, duty calling him to apprehend the prisoner but wanting to ease the distress of his leader.

"Don't even think about it," the Doctor warned, shaking his head as if to a wanton child.

"Do as you're told, man! We may still need the Time Lord," Demeca barked over his shoulder, moving to help the beloved Proctor, who had fallen to his knees, rupturing the swollen pustules that bound the joints together.

Obeying his superior, the HV reached out his gauntlet and seized the Doctor by the wrist, wrenching him closer.

His quarry was not moved an inch, the skin from the wrist down sliding smoothly off like a glove. As he looked down at the sloughed flesh in his grasp, the HV found himself treated to a chummy wave from the Time Lord.

"I said hands off, didn't I?" he chirped, smiling broadly.

Demeca swung round, seeing the limp sac of flesh the HV held aghast.

"You didn't think I'd let you get your hands on my DNA, did you, Demeca?" the Doctor grinned manically. "Your mate over there just got a big jolt of monocline."

Demeca's face was as much a mass of confusion and anguish as the very room he was standing in. "Monocline?"

"The skin-shifting mongrel I call Barb. You'll be familiar with her epidermis being weaker and less binding than a 'normal' person, I expect?"

The Proctor's cries of wracking pain nearly drowned out the Time Lord's final taunt.

"Of course, she's capable of massive duplication of her body cells, being a hermaphrodite, which means that thin skin and rapid regrowth equals 'bang'!"

Horrified and appalled by what he had done, Demeca could do little more than stand and stare, witnessing the last moments of his people's great benefactor as The Afflicted stumbled around them, blind with pain.

"What's up, Doc?" the Time Lord called, scarcely concealing his glee. "Feeling a bit sick?"

"This isn't the end of our world, Doctor," Demeca sneered, trying in vain to recover his shattered composure. "It will take more than a few germs to bring us to our knees."

"Yeah? Tell that to H. G. Wells."

With that, and a raging howl of explosive agony, the Proctor burst, his body flying apart in all directions, each piece of flesh like scarlet shrapnel being carried high in the air before they themselves ruptured in a bizarre, organic fireworks display, discharging spores, which clouded the air and settled in sooty clumps about the room. Watching in horror, Demeca saw the air-filtration system devouring the pathogens from their air-borne suspension, sucking them deep into its gusting veins and circulating the spoils far into the building and out into the atmosphere.

"No," he shrieked, unable to believe what he was seeing, what he himself had done, "No, no, no, no!"

"Yep," the Doctor shouted back, almost apoplectic in his excitement. "And that's just the ones you can see. Course, it won't be so bad out there. They'll dissipate and drift about. Just like the good old days. I reckon you've just flooded the market, mate."

"People will die!" Demeca raged.

"Get used to it. That's life. We've all got to go sometime. Which reminds me, I'd best be off now."

The Doctor picked his way through the mayhem. HV's were fighting to control the fires that broke out all over their reactive armour, casting their protective shielding off, panic-stricken, only to emerge as frail humans, easy prey for unseen and rapacious bacteria.

Demeca, himself, was shaking his head vigorously, trying to peel off his gloves so that he dare touch his own sullied skin. His gloves glowed white-hot as the biological onslaught was fought across his flesh.

Flippantly, the Time Lord turned as he reached the exit, and gave a histrionic sigh.

"That's the problem with healthy living. No stamina and even less of an immune system."

"Help me," the doctor was pleading, eyes bulging and raw with stinging tears. "Please…"

"Oh, so now I'm the Doctor?"

"Yes, yes," Demeca conceded, scrabbling at his collar as if to tear out the growing soreness in his throat. "Please, just don't let me die…"

"You're not going to die, Demeca. Not yet, anyway. Looks like a nasty case of the 'flu to me. I told you before, take two aspirin and call me in the morning."

Demeca looked on in confusion, flaming hands reaching out, imploring.

"Well, don't just stand there like a wet weekend in Wrexham." The Time Lord nodded helpfully at the pharmaceutical cabinets to the rear of the chamber. "Go on. Physician heal thyself."

…………………………………………………………………………………

Rose, Barb, and the Doctor walked through the streets of New Ailing, Rose between her two guardians, feeling somehow better than her sniffling might suggest.

She had grown quite attached to hearing their bickering and griping about each other over the last few hours, and despite it all, it was nice to see the Doctor seem so alive. Perhaps being wrong-footed and challenged every step of the way kept him on his toes, made him more aware of who he was and what he stood for.

It was as though she was seeing him taking the first steps along a private journey, just as he was guiding her to do.

Besides, Barb was a proper good laugh, completely unfazed by anything that came her way and relentlessly unimpressed by all of the revelations of nine-hundred year old Time Lords, living plastic, farting killers and exploding department stores. Rose had been in hysterics as they had had their celebratory meal together, watching the Doctor trying in vain to enthuse about all the things he had seen, desperate to stupefy and amaze their new friend.

Barb had cut him dead, asking how many flavours of ice cream there actually were in existence, and if anyone had ever thought of lipstick that changed colour to denote if you were up for it or not.

Rose fell quiet as they walked Barb back to the bar, a silence that continued as the two time travellers watched her shuffle her mules inside, promising to wait for her to change into something more suitable for their final farewells.

Rose said at last: "We can't just leave like this?"

The Doctor, feet as itchy as ever to get back to his timeship and surf the Vortex for sights and sounds and smells anew, shrugged, once more baffled by the logic of the human species.

"Why not? Everything's back to normal. There's going to be sick days and marital headaches and hangovers. Even a bit of Ghandi's Revenge, I reckon. Even better, it's all free now."

"I meant Barb, Doctor…"

"Barb?" The Time Lord looked muddled for a moment, as if his mind had already taken its leave and moved on to fresh adventures.

"She hasn't got anyone here. No family, no friends. I thought you'd be sympathetic."

"She's got her audience, Rose."

Rose scowled, letting go his hand.

"Oh, that's cold, even for you. A bunch of leering creeps ogling her."

"It's the life she chose. What's wrong with that?" he relied, nonplussed.

"I was only half-asleep in that cell, Doctor. You heard what she said. All the excitement and wonder she used to crave. Just because she's older doesn't mean she doesn't still feel the same. Look at you, you're ancient!"

"Thanks for that. I like to think I'm just getting my second wind."

"So how about giving Barb a second chance? She could be like a mother to me, or a big sister maybe. I mean, you're lovely and everything, but you don't know how to gossip to save your life."

"Two women in the TARDIS? People are going to talk."

"I think you two sort of compliment each other though."

He gave her a sceptical look, eyes wary.

"This wouldn't be you match-making, would it?"

Rose giggled, pinching his nose.

"What, you?" she smiled. "Mister 'I don't do domestic'?"

There was a long and silent moment as they both watched Barb sauntering out of the club, carrying a suitcase and a veritable zoo of feather boas. The gown and mules were gone, and Rose was dumbstruck by the transformation. What had once been an early morning mum bringing in the milk bottles was now a glamorous vision in pastel shades, tottering on heels as narrow and high as health and safety regulations might permit. She wore a broad-brimmed summer hat, jauntily askew and highlighting the delicate make-up she had expertly applied to accentuate her natural beauty.

"Blimey," Rose heard the Doctor whisper under his breath.

"Those bastards," Barb screeched. "I was only gone a day and they've got a new act already. Here, you're a bloke, carry these." She thrust the streaming boas into the Time Lord's hand. He stood there, speechless and bewildered.

Barb looked him over and pulled a face at Rose.

"I swear he looks half-gone sometimes, darling. God knows how he gets you from A to B. Follows his nose, by the looks of it."

Shocked, Rose covered her mouth to mask her laughter.

Recovering his composure, the Doctor responded to the affront. "As it turns out, I happen to be a good navigator actually. Never had any complaints."

He saw Rose's doubtful reproach.

"Okay, many complaints," he corrected.

Barb took his hand and lugged the suitcase under her free arm. "Great. You can find me a new job then, can't you, since you just lost me that one."

"Or…" Rose prompted, nudging the Doctor, urging him to speak with a crafty wink.

Barb frowned. "Or what?"

The Doctor sighed, resigned to his minority position between two such strong women.

"Or," he relented, regaining his customary good nature, "You could come for a spin with us?"

"After the last time?" Barb shrieked, making the Time Lord wince. "Hardly a drive in the country, was it?"

"Ah, but this time it's all about Time," Rose told her. "Time and Space. Anywhere you fancy. Isn't that right, Doctor?"

"Yes," he grinned. "So how about it, Barb? I think even the TARDIS can handle your wardrobe. Might even have room for your personality if we put the bins out."

"Cheeky bugger, you are," she gasped, then, "Are you serious?"

"About the bins, yeah." He sniggered.

Barb thought for a moment, looking back at the bar, at the coughing, sneezing streets of New Ailing, weighing up her chances of ever finding happiness under a hot stage light and the scrutiny of raucous, horny aliens.

"Alright then," she said finally. "I suppose I could come along for a little while. I won't be staying long, mind you."

"There's no mini-bar, no smoking, and no drying your tights in the engine room, though."

"Yeah, like I said," Barb frowned, "I won't be staying long…"

THE END


End file.
